Following a month-long nomination process, the MNN editorial team faced the difficult task of combing through the submissions to finalise a shortlist.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to nominate. Nominations came from the companies themselves, as well as analysts, corporate advisors, investors and the judges.

We were impressed with the calibre of the nominations, which made the task of narrowing them down all the more difficult.

After robust discussion and debate, the final nominees are:

Explorer of the Year, sponsored by DDH1 Drilling

Bellevue Gold for the Bellevue Gold project in WA

Liontown Resources for the Kathleen Valley lithium project in WA

Adriatic Metals for the Rupice polymetallic project in Bosnia & Herzegovina

Red 5 for the King of the Hills gold project in WA

Deal and/or Merger of the Year, sponsored by Steinepreis Paganin

Northern Star Resources for the acquisition of the Pogo gold mine in Alaska

Galena Mining for the sale of up to 40% of the Abra base metals project to Toho Zinc

Silver Lake Resources and Doray Minerals' merger of equals

Nickel Mines' initial public offering

CEO of the Year

Mark Zeptner of Ramelius Resources

Raleigh Finlayson of Saracen Mineral Holdings

Michael O'Keeffe of Champion Iron

Elizabeth Gaines of Fortescue Metals Group

New and/or Emerging Leader of the Year, sponsored by Primero Group

David Southam of Mincor Resources

Paul Adams of Spectrum Metals

AJ Saverimutto of Venturex Resources

John Lamb of Myanmar Metals

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Over the next few weeks, we will be profiling each of the nominees which will shed some light on the rationale for their inclusion as finalists.

During that time, our judging panel will deliberate and choose a winner in each category.

The winners will be announced later in July.